One of the most beautiful women ever to grace the silver screen, Hedy Lamarr also designed a secret weapon against Nazi Germany. Halfway through the book: I do NOT think this is a wonderful book. I am terribly disappointed. Description of Renaissence Florence is fine. I have no quibbles with that, but the plot is so foreseeable, so predictable. The characters seem as modern day caricatures. For me this is pure fluff. Am I learning anything new, to compensate for all my my other disappointments? No!

The surrounding landscape is split between the light blue of the ocean, making up most of the left of the composition. It meets the grassy shoreline on the right-hand side of the composition, which extends into what appears to be a hilly landscape with various scattered trees in the distance. There is a forest in the right foreground where the Hora of Spring awaits. Orange blossoms decorate the trees. Other blossoms are blown towards Venus as she reaches the shore, these include beautiful pink roses with gilded centers. We see Botticelli’s Venus emulating the same features as those of the Aphrodite of Knidos (Cnidus) (c. 4 th century BC) by the Greek sculptor Praxiteles of Athens. He was one of the first sculptors to portray the female figure in the nude and was lauded as one of the most innovative sculptors of his time due to this. Praxiteles’s sculpture depicts Aphrodite holding a bath towel in her left hand covering her genitalia with her right hand, however, her breasts are still exposed. For classical examples, see below. Scallops were familiar Italian seafood, but their shells are never more than a few inches wide. The main European species eaten are Pecten maximus and Pecten jacobaeus in the Mediterranean Sea. No Mediterranean shell is anything like this large, although various tropical giant clam species may reach half this width or more, with a rather different shape. The painting is referenced in the title and cover artwork for Venus on the Half-Shell, a science fiction novel by Philip José Farmer. into a beautiful spiral. But that is not just any spiral. It is a perfect logarithmic spiral, discovered decades later as a naturally-occurring natural spiral also known as "the marvelous spiral."Both the mother, with her own chequered past, and the slave maid Erila, are actually much more interesting than Alessandra herself, who always seems to be the victim of other people’s needs and manipulations. Her husband, too, is a fascinating character. All of these are people who, unlike Alessandra, made their own decisions, their own lives and remained true to themselves (yes, even the slave, who seems to hav Substitute Florence for Italy and the Medicis for the Borgias and it would still be an accurate assessment.

To Venus’ left (our right) there is another female figure on the shore, waiting to meet her. She holds out a florally decorated cloak to cover Venus. This figure is identified as one of the Horae, which are the goddesses of the seasons, specifically the Hora of Spring due to the floral patterns and flowers on her dress. stands in a classical contrapposto stance, her weight is shifted too far over the left leg for the pose to be held. Moreover, her positioning on the edge of the scallop shell (which cannot be By dramatising the relations between work, freedom and gender, and at the same time casting the action in the harsh, distant past, Venus will involve readers without being too confronting; a compelling mix. Spirited, talented and super-intelligent, Alessandra is chaperoned wherever she goes. Fifteen years old and bursting with independence, she knows she will only get her freedom through marriage, and then only relatively and for as long as the marriage lasts: if her husband dies it's straight into the convent. Worse still, Alessandra is compelled to paint at a time when the practice of art is forbidden to women. Since early childhood she has been secretly living her dream, but she realises that without a teacher she can't make progress. Rather than choosing one of the many interpretations offered for Botticelli's depiction of the Birth (Arrival?) of Venus it might be better to view it from a variety of perspectives. This layered approach—mythological, political, religious—was intended. [48] Derivative versions [ edit ] Berlin Venus, workshop of Botticelli. Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.

Studies for the Libyan Sibyl (recto); Studies for the Libyan Sibyl and a small Sketch for a Seated Figure (verso) Alternative identifications for the two secondary female figures involve those also found in the Primavera; the nymph held by Zephyr may be Chloris, a flower nymph he married in some versions of her story, and the figure on land may be Flora. [7] Flora is generally the Roman equivalent of the Greek Chloris; in the Primavera Chloris is transformed into the figure of Flora next to her, following Ovid's Fasti, [8] but it is hard to see that such a transformation is envisaged here. However, the roses blown along with the two flying figures would be appropriate for Chloris.

Unlike his contemporaries such as Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli chose to delve further into the past for his subject matter in the "Birth of Venus." While da Vinci was sourcing It has been believed that it was part of the other painting, La Primavera (c. 1482 to 1483), but it has been reported that it was not its counterpart. Although there are ancient and modern texts that are relevant, no single text provides the precise imagery of the painting, which has led scholars to propose many sources and interpretations. [26] Many art historians who specialize in the Italian Renaissance have found Neoplatonic interpretations, of which two different versions have been articulated by Edgar Wind and Ernst Gombrich, [27] to be the key to understanding the painting. Botticelli represented the Neoplatonic idea of divine love in the form of a nude Venus. [28] Lilian Zirpolo, "Botticelli's Primavera: a Lesson for the Bride," Woman's Art Journal, 12/2 1991; Jane C. Long, "Botticelli's Birth of Venus as Wedding Painting," Aurora, 9 (2008) 1–26.

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No one should visit Tuscany this summer without this book. It is richly textured and driven by a thrillerish fever.” Hemsoll, David, The Birth of Venus, University of Birmingham, 18 min introductory lecture, refs to mm:ss Having a large standing female nude as the central focus was unprecedented in post-classical Western painting, and certainly drew on the classical sculptures which were coming to light in this period, especially in Rome, where Botticelli had spent 1481–82 working on the walls of the Sistine Chapel. [38] The pose of Botticelli's Venus follows the Venus Pudica ("Venus of Modesty") type from classical antiquity, where the hands are held to cover the breasts and groin; in classical art this is not associated with the new-born Venus Anadyomene. What became a famous example of this type is the Venus de' Medici, a marble sculpture that was in a Medici collection in Rome by 1559, which Botticelli may have had opportunity to study (the date it was found is unclear). [39]